Queue Times and FTP | We are Boned

General Discussion
21

I personally just think Supports are antithetical to DPS. This is an unachievable goal.

Sure, you might be able to make a dent, but its going to be hard to swap classic coke fans to diet coke.

IMO, the only way to fix this is 1-2-1, but that would make the game even less Overatch.

22

I think

  1. If you buff Supports enough in a direction that DPS/FPS players enjoy, they will be more popular.
  2. They donā€™t need to balance Supports to have equal overall Value as DPS because we have Role Limits. (I.e. Tanks in Overwatch 2 obviously have more overall value than DPS, and itā€™s not a problem because of Role Limits)
  3. People really need to let go of the MOBA/RPG concept of Roles, because Overwatch is basically a Class Based Shooter with more abilities than usual.
  4. Itā€™s unprofessional to design the game around a playerbase they donā€™t and wonā€™t have. And focus on designing it around the playerbase they do and will have.
  5. As soon as PVE launches, youā€™re gonna lose almost all of your ā€œMOBA/RPG preferencedā€ players. So it makes no sense to design PVP around those players.
  6. Itā€™s absurd to have it where Tanks/DPS do a lot of damage, get a lot of kills, are highly self sufficient, with big solo-carry potential. And then argue that Supports need to be the opposite of that, because of an entirely separate game genre where all Roles are heavily limited and co-dependant.
23

More popular, yes, but not more popular than the real thing, we are talking about degrees of success, not a total one.

I donā€™t buy that they have more power in the context of a tankā€™s role. They gave up the pivotal space making rotations and durability in order to frag better. If we only measure a tankā€™s success by their dueling capability, then sure, but they need to do other things that require a different skillset.

To put it simply, if we only needed people who can frag, then quad dps would have been the meta before role queue.

This distinction, however mild, is what set OW apart from the market. Nobody is saying the game is literally a MOBA, but it does lean into the troupes pretty hard, much harder than other similar games. Itā€™s natural to draw in players from a role trinity from other games with a role trinity.

Correct, which is why OW2 will fail in the long term, as it is leaning harder against what made OW1 sucessfull.

this doesnā€™t jive with the point you made above. Like, Correct, so why are they reinventing the wheel here?

I think the damage needs toned down across the board, not lifted.

1 Like
24

you dont know what queue times are going to be, this thread was pointless like everything else you post

the beta queues were better for dps than they were in ow1 in my region

25

Incidentally, in OW1, Tanks do near equal damage and kills over a match than DPS. And they are beefier and stronger in OW2.

On top of their capability to do Tank stuff.

So why shouldnā€™t Supports have nearly the same damage/kills as DPS, on top of their ability to do Healer stuff?

26

Incorrect, we have reference from the beta. Iā€™m saying that judging by the beta queues, and looking at the new crowd of courted OW2 players, that we are screwed.

But they must do it from the frontline at much shorter ranges. That is my entire point. They have a different job that requires a different set of tools. There is a reason ex tank players often cite being deleted from across the map as a problem. The tools donā€™t matter out of the appropriate context. Not to mention they are usually dueling heroes with more of a health pool that is being healed up, but I digress.

27

I donā€™t think you get it. Probably 80% of the Overwatch 1 playerbase likes being lethal.

And that will probably be closer to 95% after PVE launches.

So it makes no sense to make Supports not be lethal.

Why the heck should we design around that tiny 5% minority?

28

I donā€™t buy this estimate. Begin lethal goes both ways, and people freaking hate being instagibbed.

Correct, which is, like 90% of the complaints. That they are ditching the entire flow of the game for some dps players from different gamesā€¦

I think everyone should be less lethal.

29

I view it as ā€œfinally designing around the preferences of the playerbase they actually haveā€.

Rather than designing around an entirely imaginary playerbase they donā€™t have.

30

Yea f2p will definetly increase the dps queue.

1 Like
31

You cant do that because you have no idea how many people will pick up that game when it goes free. plus there will be a new support

You have nothing to base this on

32

Or maybe try role limits :thinking:

33

I figure try all the things that could reduce queue times, and see what sticks. No need to try only one thing and pray it works.

34

Letā€™s push the debate to the side for a second. to be clear, I disagree with your summation, but lets set that aside.

Real talk,

Your proposals are actively killing what made OW special, are you aware of that?

Your arguments, however true or false they may be, will actively change the once mega successful game and pivot it to an entirely different audience.

You are actively counting on that, and endorsing it. You are analyzing it as if you are chasing some market trend as a business person, and not as a player that enjoys OW1.
More players does not equal better, again setting aside my disagreements, since OW2, imo wonā€™t be successful in the long term after hype dies.

You seem to think Being more like Fortnite will save OW, but my question is, what is OW even, if it sells out its vision?

Numbers are irrelevant, the proportionality of players are, in terms of queue times. What Iā€™m judging it by is the type of players that the game is very explicitly targeting with FTP. It is an objective fact, that the only reasons to go ftp is to break into that amrket.

35

My proposal is that that thereā€™s no point in worrying about losing 10,000 to 50,000 MOBA/RPG preferenced players, who would mostly all quit out of PVP and play PVE anyways.

And that they should instead focus on fixing queue times, which could otherwise cost them anywhere between 300,000 and 3,000,000 players

And that thatā€™s an extremely obvious business decision to make.

36

You are clearly missing the point, as you tend to do. OW1 lost most of those player by chasing this dps oriented direction. WE will never get to launch levels of success because we pissed these players away. We might be able to bring them back, but we won;t if we just ignore them. We ought to be going backwards in terms of philosophy, back when the game was successful, not doubling down on what killed it.

We can afford to lose those players, if they are dps players, by your logic. If high dps queues will kill the game, then less dps players solves it. Not endorsing this, but it checks out with your mindset.

The obvious business decision was to not muddle the game, and to sell it full price, plus PVE expansions, a la classic blizzard. This new method seems like arson, where they are burning down the game to cash in quickly, unconcerned with its longevity.

3 Likes
37

no way to know what role they will play. some heroes are being changed and a new support is releasing too

theres really know what to know what queues will be

38

they are not burning it down lol. they are updating it to 5s. plenty of people will like it better

39

And plenty of people donā€™t, what is your point?

Yes, I absolutely do, again, given that those players are being explicitly targeted by the ftp decision. They are chasing market trends, otherwise, what market do you think they are going after? you are arguing it is a good thing, that this will bring in new players, if so, then who?

1 Like
40

Free doesnt necessarily mean more damage players, theres no reason to think that

Heroes are getting changed from the beta and a new support is releasing. you have no idea what queues will be